- Sep 13, 2019
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Hi. I'm pretty new to designing and building PCs, but not to upgrading and adding hardware to existing towers and laptops. I've already upgraded and added several components such as a couple fans, two PCI devices, added RAM, replaced HDDs, etc in the tower I'll describe in more detail below.
What I'd like to know is if it's possible to take a complete system and move it from one case to another.
The comouter in question is an Acer Aspire TC-885-ACCFLi5 that I've completely altered with several pieces of hardware myself. The homepage and original info and specs are found here
(I think):
https://www.acer.com/ac/en/GB/content/model/DT.BAPEK.041
Before I continue, there is one caveat that could make everything I'm going to ask completely moot. I only use Linux. What's more I've configured my distro so it works with regular old bios, not EFI. I suspect that means that it could be more difficult to find hardware device drivers and other pieces of firmware for any components included with the new case than it would be if I used Windows. I would truly hate myself if I went and moved everything and found that the case itself or any of its built-in components cause any problems that the Acer bios is unable to handle and my entire system ends up broken. In a nutshell, I don't know if it's even possible to use Acer hardware in cases not manufactured by Acer itself.
The reason I'm asking these questions is because after I adding RAM, swaped out the original HDD, added two M.2 SSDs, adding two PCI devices (one with multiple usb3 and usbc ports, and the other that's a heatsink and fan cooled M.2 slot), and adding another case fan the only thing that I'm really missing is front-access optical-bays. You see, the Acer Aspire tower does not have any front-panel optical bays, with the exception of a tiny DVD slot that's covered by the front of the case that only allows the small DVD drove to eject and slide back inside.
I'd like to add (1) 5.25" multi-function usb3, usbc, sdcard reader, etc; and (2) a 5.25" fan control module. Or, of course, an optical bay device that can do a mixture of the two I just described. Having extra room for a few more fans couldn't hurt either.
Is it possible to take everything out of the Acer Aspire case and out it into another case that would give me access to at least one, (but preferably 2 or more) 5.25" optical bays?
Like I said, I'm pretty new to building computers. When I decided to switch from laptop to tower I wasn't confident that I'd be able to build something on my own so I felt it would be much safer to buy one made by a very well reviewed and respected company like Acer. I chose the Acer Aspire tower I'm using now because it came equipped with several other features that I really like, such as a good Intel i5 processor, more than enough back-panel usb ports, built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and built-in graphics gpu with hdmi support. Ultimately everything works great after my upgrades and additions, I'd just like to have easier access to the components that fit in an optical slot or two which would be impossible to add due to the Acer's construction.
If it is possible, can you recommend any cases that fall in the $50-80 range that could accommodate my motherboard, cpu, ram, HDD+SSDs, PCI slot items and so on?
I'd love to hear any info you can provide me! Thanks a lot!
What I'd like to know is if it's possible to take a complete system and move it from one case to another.
The comouter in question is an Acer Aspire TC-885-ACCFLi5 that I've completely altered with several pieces of hardware myself. The homepage and original info and specs are found here
(I think):
https://www.acer.com/ac/en/GB/content/model/DT.BAPEK.041
Before I continue, there is one caveat that could make everything I'm going to ask completely moot. I only use Linux. What's more I've configured my distro so it works with regular old bios, not EFI. I suspect that means that it could be more difficult to find hardware device drivers and other pieces of firmware for any components included with the new case than it would be if I used Windows. I would truly hate myself if I went and moved everything and found that the case itself or any of its built-in components cause any problems that the Acer bios is unable to handle and my entire system ends up broken. In a nutshell, I don't know if it's even possible to use Acer hardware in cases not manufactured by Acer itself.
The reason I'm asking these questions is because after I adding RAM, swaped out the original HDD, added two M.2 SSDs, adding two PCI devices (one with multiple usb3 and usbc ports, and the other that's a heatsink and fan cooled M.2 slot), and adding another case fan the only thing that I'm really missing is front-access optical-bays. You see, the Acer Aspire tower does not have any front-panel optical bays, with the exception of a tiny DVD slot that's covered by the front of the case that only allows the small DVD drove to eject and slide back inside.
I'd like to add (1) 5.25" multi-function usb3, usbc, sdcard reader, etc; and (2) a 5.25" fan control module. Or, of course, an optical bay device that can do a mixture of the two I just described. Having extra room for a few more fans couldn't hurt either.
Is it possible to take everything out of the Acer Aspire case and out it into another case that would give me access to at least one, (but preferably 2 or more) 5.25" optical bays?
Like I said, I'm pretty new to building computers. When I decided to switch from laptop to tower I wasn't confident that I'd be able to build something on my own so I felt it would be much safer to buy one made by a very well reviewed and respected company like Acer. I chose the Acer Aspire tower I'm using now because it came equipped with several other features that I really like, such as a good Intel i5 processor, more than enough back-panel usb ports, built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and built-in graphics gpu with hdmi support. Ultimately everything works great after my upgrades and additions, I'd just like to have easier access to the components that fit in an optical slot or two which would be impossible to add due to the Acer's construction.
If it is possible, can you recommend any cases that fall in the $50-80 range that could accommodate my motherboard, cpu, ram, HDD+SSDs, PCI slot items and so on?
I'd love to hear any info you can provide me! Thanks a lot!
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